Thursday's Child
by The Raisin Girl
Summary: There's a lot of ground to cover between an angel of the Lord and the person Castiel becomes for Dean Winchester, but he covers it all in a remarkably short amount of time. It's too bad neither of them has any idea what they really mean to each other. Spoilers through season five, just to be safe.


**Author's Note:** I'm a baby to the Supernatural fandom, but I have become obsessed with these characters. I can't get them out of my head. I have no new stories to tell right now, but I had to write something. Basically, this started as a weird obsession I have with that children's poem about the days of the week, and the fact that Castiel is the angel of Thursday. Then, of course, I'm completely infatuated with the relationship between Dean and Castiel. So this is my way of dealing with my Destiel angst and overall Supernatural obsession. If a billion other fics similar to this already exist, I'm sorry. That's what I get for being seven years late to the game, I guess.

* * *

_Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace._

Sam Winchester was born on a Monday, taken home from the hospital on a Tuesday…and remade on a Wednesday six months later.

_Wednesday's child is full of woe._ Well isn't that just too fuckin' appropriate.

At least Sam has an excuse. Dean's not sure what his own problem is, unless old nursery rhymes are to be given far more credence than he feels comfortable affording them. Sam was _made_, was herded and pushed and broken and tested. And if he crumpled under all that manipulation before fighting back and doing right? That doesn't make Dean any less proud of him. He was twisted toward darkness and came out light anyway.

Dean, on the other hand, sometimes feels as if he was just _born_ into it, this unquenchable black melancholy. He knows he wasn't always this way, but it's hard to remember a lighter time, a time when his insides weren't gaping open and empty, gnawing at his spine with some hunger he didn't know how to satisfy. Even before that, when he felt like a whole person and not a shredded, riddled mess, he's never felt really light, not as far back as he can remember. He took a weight onto his shoulders at the age of four and never put it down. And he doesn't regret it, not even a little. But _God_, he just feels so _heavy_ all the time. Heavy, and empty.

Castiel doesn't make it go away, not completely. It's not as if he can turn guileless blue eyes on Dean and magic-no, _angel_-away all his sorrows. Actually, in all the ways that should count, all the practical ways, Cas doesn't fix anything. He can't make Dean whole again, he can't erase his memories of Hell. He can't answer many of Dean's questions and he can't sooth away the anger that bubbles constantly just below Dean's surface, minute by minute. He can't do anything about how royally fucked Dean's life his, how cursed, how difficult.

But he makes Dean laugh. God love him and no pun intended, he makes Dean _forget _for a few precious seconds. When he doesn't understand a reference, or tries to be a guidance counselor to a hooker…when he furrows his brow in frustration at his own new and unfathomable emotions, or asks awkward questions about porn. When he throws Dean against a brick wall in an alley and screams at him. It's not Cas acting _human_, exactly, because he doesn't. He isn't. And Dean never thought he'd think this about anything, ever, but it's precisely that combination of Cas's childlike inhumanity and the very human-ish things he does sometimes that really does the trick, turns this blazing light on Dean's soul and pulls him out of this dim, grimy place his head seems to inhabit almost all the time. It shouldn't count, but it does. It counts for more than he'd ever admit.

* * *

_Thursday's child has far to go._

Very few people who had met them both would say that John Winchester and Castiel had much in common. Hell, John Winchester didn't even believe in Castiel when he lived. But Castiel always believed in John Winchester, and his boys. And that was two things they had in common, because John was born on a Thursday.

Castiel remembers John as a child, as a teenager, as a young man. He was a gentle person, inherently kind, made of steel at his core but it came with a sweet smile, quiet blue eyes, dark hair that fell across his forehead and made his sharp face look younger, even more innocent than he did already.

It was not something he passed to either of his sons.

There was Sam-Sammy, his father and brother always called him-with his small, shrewd hazel eyes that could somehow turn soft at a moment's notice, coaxing and sad, just heartbreaking. The boy wanted to be gentle, longed to be kind and soft and normal, but these were things he never would be. He tried, and his family tried, and sometimes it worked, but Castiel could see: it was only the surface. Underneath there was a swirl of anger and darkness, resentment, and envy-always more of that-the wanting and the almost casual hating of everyone around him who possessed the quiet, safe life he so desperately longed to lead.

Then Dean was another story all together.

Dean was nothing like his father, however much he hero-worshiped the man. He was nothing like his long-dead mother, either. If anything, Dean was Sam inverted. On the outside there was anger, turmoil, violence, machismo to the point of cliche. Even as a small child, Dean wrapped himself in smirking insolence and threats, but these were just a shield for what lay underneath.

Castiel could see it all, and he sometimes looked at Dean so long that he forgot himself in it. Dean was _beautiful_, rare and exceptional and everything Castiel's Father had created human beings to be. Castiel was fiercely protective of him, even more than his duty strictly required. He saw the life the Winchesters led and ached in a way he couldn't have explained, constantly watching Dean's soul, waiting with dread for the burden to become too much and the light to go out. He had to pull back sometimes, remind himself of his place when he longed to reach out and take away Dean's worries, sooth his bad dreams, heal his wounds. A guardian angel's reach only goes so far.

The bowels of Hell were certainly farther than he expected to go, for example. But he plunged himself willingly into that yawning, Godless maw, and he fought his way to Dean Winchester's side to drag the tattered remnants of his twisted soul back to the surface. If he had to guess, he'd say that was probably _the_ moment. He wrapped his Grace around this shrieking, struggling creature and he flew as fast as he could, what with his entire being racked by this gasping, halting, hitching emotional _thing _that he couldn't describe or control.

Even tainted and shattered as it was, Dean's soul was still beautiful. And if Castiel had thought looking at it was overwhelming, actually holding it like this, close to himself…there were not words. The brilliance Castiel had observed had barely even given him a hint, and the years of hardship on Earth, of torture and isolation in Hell, none of it had done a thing to dim that light.

The flight back to Earth with that bright, jagged thing pressed against his Grace was excruciating, but when it was over Castiel thought it had seemed abominably short. He did not want to let Dean go, toss him back into the mortal coil to feel pain and fear and the crushing weight of his destiny, but he did. He may have been inappropriately infatuated with this human soul, but he was a long way-a few months, at least-from Disobedience.

He wondered idly if the wrenching feeling of letting go of Dean's soul would hurt more or less than ripping out his Grace and falling to Earth. Then he shook himself, shut down his mind and focused on the task at hand. Such thoughts did not befit an angel of the Lord.

Looking back years later, it became easier and easier to see the small steps, cautious and painful and hesitant, that had finally sent him sliding headlong into rebellion, all for the sake of one man who, as far as Castiel could tell, regarded him with barely the measure of grudging affection one might give to a stray cat that evolves eventually into an accidental pet. He didn't dwell on it. He'd gone too far to turn back and sometimes, Dean would nod, or laugh, or hold his gaze just a second longer than necessary, and Castiel would remember the blinding light of a soul burning hot and alive, wrapped in his Grace…and it would feel worth the long way he had fallen.


End file.
